Jörn

 I'm back again. Posting the Speeder Bike Contest builds was bit exhausting in such intensive phase so I had a break on writing this blog. I've been building though, making mostly big new modular, but there's some unpublished character builds too: This is Jörn, built during the summer. He's my character in Dungeons and Dragons campaign Auronia I've been participating with some friends since April probably, remotely naturally. We're currently on scenario 12, I think. 

Jörn is loxodon ("Norsulainen") ranger. Loxodons, humanoid elephants, originate from Magic the Gathering (rather familiar to me) but are an official DnD race; in Magic multiverse, they live in Mirrodin, Ravnica and Tarkir. Jörn in obviously inspired by Tarkir's mammoth-like Temur loxodons, particularly Woolly Loxodon and Avalanche Tusker. It fitted well with ranger class, which I felt easy to relate with, being lived most of my life in middle of a forest and still occassionally hiking, picking berries and so on. As such Jörn is easy character to play with. The name derives from Swedish-speaking Finnish politician and cultural multi-tasker Jörn Donner; Jörn felt onomatopoeically fitting for a mammoth man, while the skandinavian origin (as opposed to fenno-ugrian) helped to form sort of "popular nordic" imaginaries. 

Jörn would be bulky, a bit huncbacked and very very hairy. I had made some drawings (in the end of this post) before making the build. On the model I began with basically ordinary mammoth's head, where the most complicate bits were the position of the tusks. The eyes are deep under heavy brown and/or hair, ephasizing the attitude of the character. The head is connected with a ball joint. The only bit of clothing is the cape, essential to any ranger (ranger comes with scale or leather mail, but loxodon's thick skin had better armour class, so Jörn sold it). Dark green was the best option, working nicely with warm tones of the hair. Old dragon wings are used to form the tightened cape over the chest, other parts if it are made with usual wedges and cockpits. 

 The hairy bulk of Jörn is made with proudly studded, somewhat randomized dark orange and redddish brown plates. The hairs on the stomach hang especially free, making the almost naked (natural) mammoth man quite decent for urban adventures. The hip joint hides behind the hairs, while the arm ball joints are bit more visible for required range of motion. The fingers use modified plates for hairy appearance; they're nothing like mammoth toes, but I wanted them to be big and long, almost alien. The feet are essentially stompy mammoth feet, using half-barrels. 

As a ranger, Jörn is bit of a pack horse; carrying weights is no problem for him. He's armed with unnamed and usual spear, mace and longbow. The two latter ones can be stored on the back with quiver full of arrows, dark red bedroll and sand red backpack. I think these complemented the colours beautifully, with flower pattern of the bedroll adding bit of traditional handicrafts on Jörn's practical and rugged appearance. It also made is possible to use the 2x4x4 round panel in sand red - beautiful colour but bit tricky piece!

-Eero